Agrifood Next 60: a guide for those looking to invest in agri-food start-ups

Sixty start-ups have been selected for the first edition of Agrifood Next 60, the annual project that maps the Italian agrifoodtech sector, presented in Turin at the ESCP Auditorium – Turin Campus, during an official side event of Wave by Vento. The initiative is organised by *beeco, an innovation ecosystem dedicated to the sector, in collaboration with the ESCP business school and InnovUp, the association representing the Italian innovation sector.

Italia is the leading country in the European Union in terms of agricultural value added, accounting for 16.9 per cent of the total (Bper Banca Research Department, 2025 data). This is where the project begins, offering innovators and investors a tool for analysing the supply chain. According to Marco D’Angelo, CEO of *beeco, ‘it’s not a problem of start-ups: these 60 prove they exist. It’s a problem of perspective, because no one had yet mapped them out in a way that investors, businesses and institutions could use to make decisions’. Giorgio Ciron, director of InnovUp, argues that “agrifood is the specialisation that Italia has not yet embraced, despite having one of the country’s most robust industrial supply chains”.

The selected companies come from 14 regions: 65 per cent are based in the North, 18 per cent in the South and on the islands, and 15 per cent in Central Italy. One in eight is a research spin-off, more than one in two holds at least one patent, and almost all sell to other businesses. In over 30 per cent of the teams, at least half of the key roles are held by women.

A panel comprising researchers, investors, managers and representatives of associations and institutions assessed the applications, applying ten common criteria, ranging from technology to the benefits for producers, right through to a straightforward question: which will still exist in 2036? The result – available to download free of charge from the agrifoodnext60.world website – is not a ranking. Each profile describes the distinctive features of the individual project, organised into six areas: deep tech, biological systems, industrial applications, artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure, circular and climate transition, and food and ingredients.

Among the profiles, Enigma , founded in Milan in 2023, has developed Appeal, an edible and compostable vegetable label , made in part from by-products of apple processing and applied to the fruit using food-grade adhesive. It incorporates a QR code for traceability and optical anti-counterfeiting markers. The factsheet highlights the EU requirement, coming into force in 2028, for compostable labels on fruit and vegetables (Regulation 2025/40).